


Bedtime Stories For Bohemians: The Princess & The Marxist

by Gildedmuse



Category: Rent (2005), Rent - Larson
Genre: Bedtime Stories, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Like Literally Retelling, One Shot, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 05:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18653524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: April, Roger, and Mark are laying around, trying to fight off the cold when April incites Mark to tell them a fairy tale.





	Bedtime Stories For Bohemians: The Princess & The Marxist

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to LJ in 2006. It was originally meant to be the first in a series which is why it has such a ridiculously long title.]

**Bedtime Stories For Bohemians:**

**The Princess & The Marxist**

 

"It's cold tonight."

Mark frowns as he leans back, staring out the window and down at the frost-covered streets. The panes are covered in a light coat of ice, much like the city itself, as snow topples down from the roof. "You think?"

Across the couch, buried in the under-stuffed cushions and ratty blankets, Roger snorts. Mark isn't sure if it's supposed to be a laugh or what, and he can't really see much over the scarf wrapped around his mouth. Just his eyes and pokes of bleached out hair sticking on end. "Shut up."

Mark smiles, but can't tell if Roger is smiling back or not. It seems like lately, with his music and girlfriend, Roger is always smiling. So Mark assumes he is, and keeps grinning back at him. "Do you want more blankets?"

Roger shakes his head. "She's keeping me warm," he says, pointing down to the lump of blankets on his chest.

On cue, a bushel of brown hair pops out from under a blanket. April turns, pushing the covers down to her chin and smiling over at Mark, who smiles and waves back. She's adorable, really, like a small kind of a cat curled around Roger's chest.

It's nice to be sharing their warmth, too. From his side of the couch, Mark is trying to cover up with what blankets the couple isn't hogging. He can feel their warmth mingling up under all the covers and leaking over to him. It's a nice way to spend a freezing night in a loft with no heating. Hey, if you're going to die from the chill, might as well do it curled up with your two best friends, right?

Mark has only been in New York for, what, four months? Already, though, April and Roger are the most amazing people he knows. Not like anyone else he's met, ever. They're passionate and in love and it's an experience in itself to just watch them. Mark has never been in love, not the way April and Roger seem to be where everything - every talk and laugh and fight - is just overflowing with emotions. Mark could never be like that, so he gets what he can by just studying the two of them.

April's head tips back, brown curls sprawled over Roger's shoulder as she stares up at him. "You're always so hot."

For April, Roger pulls the scarf down from his mouth to grin at her. "I know, babe," he says, and April laughs, slender fingers wrapping into his bleached out hair and pulling him into a kiss.

Mark smiles at them for a while before looking down at his lap. He can still hear the smack of their lips, but it just seem rude and kind of creepy to watch them, laid out over each other, making out under the same blankets he's tucked up in.

He hears shifting, and then the kissing stops, then laughter. Mark shivers as cold toes press against his arm, looking up to see April nudging him gently. She's settled herself back into Roger's arms, again hidden mostly by the covers. "You're a storyteller, right Mark?"

"He's a director," Roger corrects, hands sliding along April's arms, keeping her nice and toasty from the looks of it, and Mark can't help but feel pains of jealousy. He usually does around these two with their passions and contact when Mark has pretty much nothing. He left Brown and his college friends. He left Scarsdale and his family. He has no one to keep him warm like that. No one like Roger and April.

"Filmmaker," Mark says, throwing a lifeless, weak kick at Roger's leg that doesn't even make him flinch. After he recovers from that moment of envy, he's grinning at the two of them again. "You know that, April."

She laughs, low and soft and it makes Roger's smile brighten, face wrinkled up like it does when he's perfectly, unquestionably happy. He gets like that a lot when April is like she is now; cheerful, high. "But that's like a storyteller, right?"

"Umm..." Mark thinks for a moment, not because it's a hard question but because he isn't entirely sure where April is going with these questions. She has to want something, to ask questions like that. So it takes Mark a while, trying to think like April does. That just makes him laugh, though. "Yeah. Like a storyteller."

"Then," she says, cold toes pressing against his lap again, poking Mark lightly. "Tell us a story." And she looks up at him with deep brown eyes, lips turned down into a childish pout. The corners are turned up just a little too much, though, almost cracking a smile that she only just manages to keep back.

"Yeah." Roger's word is mostly filled with his laughter. It's a nice sound. Catchy, like his music and Mark thinks it's just as alive as he always seems. "Tell us a story." He looks down at April then back to Mark, trying to match her pout but on Roger it only looks stupid and makes Mark laugh.

"You look like an idiot," Mark points out, and Roger's pout changes to a scowl, lifting hand from the blankets for about a second just to flick him off before diving back under the blankets for warmth. Mark watches April shiver and know he doesn't want to know where that hand has gone.

"Hey, no getting off the subject," April says after she's gotten used to Roger's cold hand. "Come on, Marky, tell us a story!"

It's not like he can say no to her. April has that sort of charm about her that makes guys stumble over themselves to impress her, and Mark isn't immune to her. Not even with Roger right there, holding April tightly as they snuggle up together across from Mark. "What type of story?"

"Mmm..." April actually looks thoughtful, sucking at her lower lip while she thinks. "A bedtime story," she answers, twisting her head back and kissing Roger's chin. "He's making me sleepy."

"Okay..." Mark doesn't really know any bedtime stories, but it doesn't seem like he has that long, anyway, before April and Roger pass out on each other. So he can do with just making some shit up until they're tired of listening to him. "Once about a time," he starts, chewing over that phrase as he tries to figure out what the hell you would tell a rock star and his girlfriend. "There was a princess."

April's head pops up off Roger's chest for a moment, looking back at Mark with a blinding, childish grin. "Is her name April?"

"No," he says, shaking his head hard. "Trust me, you don't want her to be an April."

She thinks over this for a few seconds before nodding. "Then make her a May."

"Who's May?" Not that he won't give April her way if she doesn't answer. He's just curious. April doesn't talk about herself much, just about things she's doing or going to do, never backwards. Not like Roger who will pretty much share his life story with anyone.

"My bitch of a sister."

Beneath April, Roger snorts and shifts around a bit, careful not to knock his girl away. "You guys are April and May?" He asks, laughing at her softly. "Do you guys have a brother named June?"

"Shut up!" April says, swatting at Roger again, playfully hitting his shoulder before kissing the spot she'd just slapped. "Asshole." It takes a bit more kissing before they both settle back down and April looks back to Mark. "Ignore him and keep going," she says, nuzzled up in the crook of Roger's neck.

Mark watches them for a moment, a bit jealous at how easily they seem to fit together. "Anyway," he starts up again, trying to keep going with the story since he has Roger and April watching him intently. At least April is, and Roger is watching him halfway, mostly distracted by running a hand through April's hair. "There was a princess, May, who was very... uh... sad."

"Sad?" Roger has this smile that makes it pretty clear that he's laughing at Mark.

"Shut up." If he were in April's place he could really hit him, but instead he settles for just kicking at his shin lazily. "What do you want? The brutal melancholy bear away at her bruised and battered soul?"

At least he gets April to giggle. "He's making fun of your lyrics," she explains, beaming back at Roger. They never look better together than when they're laughing. Not when they're high, not when they're on stage... Okay, maybe when Roger is playing his guitar on stage because then he looks like the fucking God of music, but when he's laughing with April, it's different. Mark's own parents never looked so happy to just lay around with each other, laughing at stupid shit.

"Fuck you both," Roger says, and it doesn't really sound threatening since he's leaning over to kiss April at that moment, and April is giggling into the kiss.

"Well," she says, arms wrapping around Roger's shoulders and pulling him down. Mark watches even as he thinks he shouldn't. He should get up and leave them to it, but instead he sits right there, waiting. "You're halfway through that, at least."

Mark decides then to just keep talking, and if they still keep going like this and start to fuck right there, he is taking half the covers and leaving. "The princess was deeply bored with her life," he says, and slowly Roger and April's lips part, like they just remembered there was someone else in the room. They tend to block that out a lot. "For her father made her stay inside the castle grounds, and did not allow her to wander through the city."

Eventually Roger and April lay back, covers pulled up around their chins as they listen to Mark. It's probably the first time he's ever really had an attentive audience for one of his stories, and he isn't even sure what the story is about. "'There is a rebellion in our city,' the king would explain, 'for every man wants to be king and would surely kill the daughter of one to get there.' And May would always say she understood his reasons, but still she was curious and would often wonder and dream about what was outside the palace's walls."

"One day, May was walking right against the walls when she heard a crack, and then a hole appeared in the stone next to her, only big enough that a dog could barely scoot underneath. The princess went down to inspect the hole and was amazed to see a small girl, thin and dirty but amazingly alike to the princess. 'Are you a fairy?' May asked, for she knew that sometimes the creatures like to take form of the humans they saw and assumed this one must be mirroring her."

"'No,' the dirty young girl answered as she pulled herself out from under the wall and stood up beside May, where it was easier to see how much she resembled the young princess. 'I am April, a tailor's daughter, and I've come to rescue my boyfriend from the prison in this palace."

"Wait! Wait!" April sits up, or at least tries to, but Roger has his arms around her and groans when she starts to move, pulling her back. "She's already been seen sneaking into the palace. Why the fuck would she tell her what she is doing here? Is this April an idiot?"

"Umm... I don't really know," Mark admits, a bit taken aback by how April is taking this. Not like he's had time to think the story through. "I guess that is just how it works in fairytales."

"It's stupid," April claims with her nose wrinkled up and arms over her chest.

"Okay..." He nods, trying to think for a moment with April still pouting and glowering at him while she waits. Mark does have to admit that it would be stupid to tell the truth if you were caught. "So... Uh... Princess May meets April sneaking in under the wall, and she asks April who she is and why she is there, and April says she's... looking for... Umm... flowers."

April snorts, eyes narrowing dangerously. She's shaking, too, but Mark figures that is from Roger laughing as Mark hurries to try and fix it for her. "Okay, so she says she is a fairy, lying to keep herself out of trouble."

"Still lame," April says, rolling her eyes and elbowing Roger gently to get him to stop laughing. "But better."

"Good, cause that is the best you're going to get," Mark mutters before continuing on with the story. "And so April tells May that she is a fairy, sent to grant her a wish. To which princess May answers, 'I've always wanted to see the city, but father would never allow it." And so April, thinking this all too easy, agrees to switch places with May for a couple of nights, in which May might be a peasant and April will cover for her absences."

All this time, Mark keeps his eyes on April, making sure she isn't about to jump him again. "And so they part ways, and Princess May crawls under the wall and into the city dressed as a peasant girl should be. She looks back at the palace, taking the golden walls and beauty of the garden in from a distance. Then she walks through the dusty, dry streets to see starving urchins running about and shop men begging for money and thinks of how quaint it all is and what a wonderful story this will make when she returns to her palace."

"Eventually in her walk princess May comes to a strange looking group of men and women, all carrying weapons of sorts as they rally together. 'Excuse me, good sir, but what is going on?' she asked to a young man who seemed to be near the center of the group. 'We're the revolution,' he answered her."

Mark pauses, watching April carefully for a few seconds because he knows how lame that line sounds. But April is too busy being content and curled up into Roger to stop him now. "And so the man explains that the people are tired of living in tyranny and in terror. That they have been for too long under the rule of the dragon of greed, who takes from them and makes them work harder so that he might take more to feed the beast that he's become, and so the people of the city do not enjoy their works or lives or their families, because it is all made only to support the monster in the palace."

"And though May had never seen one, she had read many stories about dragons and monsters and supposed that one could be hidden away in the palace, sucking the life and money from these people and perhaps next it would hurt her father, the king and so agreed to do whatever she might to help these men overthrow the tyrant."

"Meanwhile, back in the palace April had found her way down to the prison. 'This poet,' she says, pointing to her boyfriend through the bars. 'he is to be set free, for he has done nothing but speak the truth.' And once the poet is let out of his chains, he whispers into April's ear and she then turns to his cellmate, pointing to him as well. 'And this painter, he is to be set free for he has done nothing but shown the truth.' And the guards hesitate, but April, as the princess, insists to them and then he too is freed."

"Once they are safely away from the guards, April explains to the poet and the painter about the naïve princess's deal, and how the revolution is to take place at this very night. And thus the three devise a plan to-"

"Fen... Ner..."

"What?" Mark looks over April's curls to Roger, who gives a snore and rolls over, almost knocking April off the couch. She just clings to him, yawning in her sleep and hardly moving at all.

"And the that night their plan goes off without a hitch, and the painter, poet, and April start having a threesome relationship with lots of hot sex until the poet gets jealous of the painter's sexual prowess, and you guys are really asleep, huh?"

Mark waits. Roger snores some more. No one says anything.

With a sigh, Mark grabs what blankets he can, making the two of them groan in protest and shift closer together for warmth. They have each other, so they can spare a few blankets for the lonely, frozen cameraman. "Goodnight," Mark mutters, pulling the blankets up to his chin as he curls up on one side of the couch where April and Roger's legs are no longer bumping into him, but he can almost feel a touch of their warm bodies still. "Guess now you guys aren't going to know how it ends."


End file.
